[Sustain] *BIG* Community Choice News! 8, 100 Jobs Through CleanPowerSF

[Eric Brooks]

Hi all,

The following crucial report (in the traditionally pro-PG&E San 
Francisco Chronicle) is a *huge* step forward for CleanPowerSF and all 
other Community Choice energy programs in the state. This report will 
end the nonsensical PG&E posturing that Community Choice somehow will 
not bring jobs, and the report will make the launch of CleanPowerSF very 
likely within the next couple of years, because the unions which San 
Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and PG&E have previously manipulated against us 
will no longer be able to be able to justify opposing CleanPowerSF to 
their rank and file members.

This profoundly groundbreaking change in Chronicle news coverage is a 
key validation that the establishing of extensive local clean energy and 
efficiency installations as the foundation of Community Choice programs, 
is vital to the next stages of our local and statewide Community Choice 
efforts in California.

It was the diligent work of San Francisco Green Party, Local Clean 
Energy Alliance, 350 SF, Sierra Club, Our City, Haight Ashbury 
Neighborhood Council (HANC), and in the mid 2000s Greenpeace, which 
brought about this incredible victory.

Here is the report:

http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/S-F-clean-energy-program-could-generate-8-100-5897392.php


  SF clean energy program could generate 8,100 jobs, report says


          By Marisa Lagos


          Updated 7:19 pm, Sunday, November 16, 2014

A renewable energy program in San Francisco could create more that 8,100 
construction jobs by building $2.4 billion worth of proposed solar, wind 
and geothermal projects, a new report says. That refutes many criticisms 
made by Mayor Ed Lee 
<http://www.sfgate.com/search/?action=search&channel=politics&inlineLink=1&searchindex=gsa&query=%22Ed+Lee%22> 
when the city killed a previous version of CleanPowerSF, supporters of 
the plan say.

The proposal, which has wide support among the city’s supervisors, would 
allow San Francisco to generate or purchase its own clean energy and 
deliver it to consumers through Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s existing 
transmission network. The idea is to offer a cleaner alternative to PG&E.

Because CleanPowerSF could shake the company’s decades-long monopoly 
over delivering energy to San Francisco, it has met stiff opposition — 
including from Lee and his allies. But the program is overwhelmingly 
supported by the Board of Supervisors 
<http://www.sfgate.com/search/?action=search&channel=politics&inlineLink=1&searchindex=gsa&query=%22Board+of+Supervisors%22> 
and the city’s left, which has long sought an alternative to PG&E.

The study by energy consultants EnerNex was commissioned by the city’s 
Local Agency Formation Commission 
<http://www.sfgate.com/search/?action=search&channel=politics&inlineLink=1&searchindex=gsa&query=%22Local+Agency+Formation+Commission%22> 
and states the city doesn’t need to contract with an outside company and 
could easily administer CleanPowerSF through the San Francisco Public 
Utilities Commission 
<http://www.sfgate.com/search/?action=search&channel=politics&inlineLink=1&searchindex=gsa&query=%22San+Francisco+Public+Utilities+Commission%22>.

The often-fractured Board of Supervisors has coalesced around the 
program, known as community choice aggregation, or CCA, and continued to 
push for some iteration of it even after the PUC commission 
<http://www.sfgate.com/search/?action=search&channel=politics&inlineLink=1&searchindex=gsa&query=%22PUC+commission%22> 
last year refused to set rates and bring in Shell Energy North America 
to be the city’s power broker for at least five years. The PUC 
commission is appointed by the mayor.

Supporters said the EnerNex report sketches out a plan that avoids many 
aspects of the earlier proposal criticized by the mayor and others — 
that it wouldn’t create local jobs, that the power wouldn’t be renewable 
or cheap enough, and that it would be run by an out-of-state corporation 
best known for its oil division.

*Report affirms job creation*

Supervisor London Breed 
<http://www.sfgate.com/search/?action=search&channel=politics&inlineLink=1&searchindex=gsa&query=%22London+Breed%22> 
said the report affirms what she and other supervisors “have been saying 
all along, and what Marin and Sonoma have already demonstrated: that a 
robust clean power program will not only provide cleaner air and 
competitive rates — it will create jobs and benefit the local economy.” 
Marin and Sonoma counties already have CCAs.

Supervisor Scott Wiener 
<http://www.sfgate.com/search/?action=search&channel=politics&inlineLink=1&searchindex=gsa&query=%22Scott+Wiener%22> 
said the study “demonstrates a clear path for CleanPowerSF, in terms of 
clean and renewable energy generation, and that it could happen with or 
without the Shell contract,” and “does a great job talking about all the 
different opportunities to increase the generation of clean and 
renewable energy — solar, wind, geothermal, hydro power.”

A spokesman for Lee, who has always insisted he does not oppose the 
CleanPowerSF program itself, seized on the report’s findings that a 
Shell contract was unnecessary.

“After months and months of study, public power advocates have finally 
concluded that a contract with Shell Oil was never an appropriate way 
for San Francisco to make progress on our environmental goals,” 
spokeswoman Christine Falvey 
<http://www.sfgate.com/search/?action=search&channel=politics&inlineLink=1&searchindex=gsa&query=%22Christine+Falvey%22> 
said in a written statement. “This latest report confirms that a real 
clean energy program should include real local jobs and real clean 
energy ... which is something we can now all agree on. In recent years, 
these critical elements were nowhere to be found.”

*Lee opposes opt-out method *

Falvey said the mayor still has concerns over whether a program would 
rely in part on transferable renewable energy credits rather than 100 
percent clean energy generation, and he continues to oppose the opt-out 
provision that, under state law, automatically enrolls customers who 
could opt-out if they’d rather stay with PG&E.

To ensure that rates are competitive with PG&E’s, the report says the 
city will have to determine generation prices ahead of time and build a 
program backward from there. The Local Agency Formation Commission, 
which commissioned the report, is an agency of the board of supervisors.

EnerNex also recommends focusing on local employment, in part by giving 
“a preference for projects that are physically located within the city 
and county of San Francisco.” The report lays out at least five 
large-scale solar projects that could be built in San Francisco and 
would create about 1,000 local construction jobs. Other potential 
projects identified in the report would create local jobs, because they 
are close enough to San Francisco to fall under it’s “local hire” 
ordinance. EnerNex anticipates the program would create 180 permanent 
operations jobs.

The report notes the program could help the SFPUC stabilize its power 
division, which has serious budget challenges because most of the 
hydropower it generates through its Hetch Hetchy water system is sold to 
city agencies or wholesale at deeply discounted rates. The report 
recommends using CleanPowerSF to help fund a pet project of Lee’s, 
GoSolarSF — which provides incentives for property owners to install 
solar panels.

*More local jobs*

Those sorts of private renewable energy projects on homes and businesses 
within the city also stand to help CleanPowerSF improve its green 
portfolio, lower costs for consumers and create even more local jobs, 
the report states — up to seven construction jobs for every $1 million 
spent on build out.

The report isn’t the only angle supporters are taking. Supervisors 
earlier this year approved legislation directing the city to study the 
option of joining Marin County's renewable power program. Wiener and 
Breed have also authored what he called “complimentary” legislation that 
stands to significantly expand the PUC’s power customer base by giving 
the agency the first crack at providing hydropower to nearly all new 
developments in the city. Currently, the PUC must compete with PG&E. The 
legislation is expected to get its first public vetting Nov. 24.

/

Marisa Lagos is a San Francisco Chronicle 
<http://www.sfgate.com/search/?action=search&channel=politics&inlineLink=1&searchindex=gsa&query=%22San+Francisco+Chronicle%22> 
staff writer. E-mail: mlagos at sfchronicle.com 
<mailto:mlagos at sfchronicle.com>

Twitter: @mlagos

/
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